The Future is Ours

What could possibly link the 2017 film La La Land with the 1915 novel Of Human Bondage? What delusional feat of intellectual bravado is the writer about to indulge in (yes, I can hear your thoughts)? The two differ in plot, characters, setting, genre and even medium. It certainly sounds as if any connections that do exist would be tenuous at best. But humour me. La La Land, set in contemporary Los Angeles (surprise surprise) considers our choices in life, and the sacrifices we make to pursue our dreams. The two main characters, Mia and Sebastian, ultimately choose their dreams over one another. So in the final scene, catching sight of one another after having achieved their ambitions, they imagine what could have been. This ‘what-if’ fantasy takes place in an obviously artificial mock-universe, made up of stage-scenery and backdrops, before returning to reality. They are together but only in 2-dimensions. Mia leaves shortly after but again catching Sebastian’s eye she winks. It’s a bitter-sweet ending, bestowing the characters with their dreams but at the price of their hearts. This wink acknowledges that life rarely gives us all we desire, but instead of wanting our cake and eating it we should be satisfied with what we do have. We can’t dream of the what-ifs nor can we hide in our imagination. Life must be lived and the only direction we can face is forward.

So what does this have to do with Of Human Bondage, written just over a century prior? This engrossing bildungsroman, by Somerset Maughan, follows Philip Carey from boyhood, past his education and into adult life. It mostly takes place in late-Victorian Britain but with periods in Paris and Heidelberg. We witness his forays into accountancy, painting, retail and medicine, and share in his confusion at which direction to pursue in life. He is at the ripe old age of thirty when he finally begins his medical career. Though it might be due to my own current situation as an unemployed 25 year old, it seems that Maughan is reassuring us all. It’s all right to stumble in life, to take wrong steps and wander down the wrong path. In the maze of life we all get lost at one point or another. What matters is that we carry on, because then everything else will fall into place.

We all make decisions which we regret and everyone wonders at how life might have been different. But La La Land and Of Human Bondage remind us that it’s not what we have done that matters but what we will do. There’s no such thing as lost time and we must not let the past hinder the future. Thinking of this, as I walked out of the cinema, gave me fresh courage to continue and reignited my hopes for tomorrow. Sometimes we just need to be reminded that tomorrow is what we make of it. 

The Mad Conductor

Yesterday I was on a train from Leominster to Newport and, in spite of the grey weather, enjoying the view of the steadily encroaching Welsh Hills. Alongside the landscape another enjoyable feature of my journey was the lunatic appointed as conductor. This sounds rather alarming at first, but allow me to elaborate. As soon as he inspected my ticket I knew that he was mad. ‘Ah, a mug shot’ he exclaimed seeing my railcard. ‘Guilty as charged’ he declared, stamping my ticket. As he moved down the carriage he requested ‘will everybody please get out their tickets and wave them in the air like they just don’t care’. When he returned to collect rubbish he enquired if we would like to be shed of any waste? (I myself was shed of an old train ticket.) At one point finding himself confronted by a refreshments trolley, he turned around, made a trumpet call with his hands on his mouth and declared that refreshments were approaching.

But it was while making announcements that his genius really shone. Pulling into Hereford he reminisced of his fond memories of the city in the 1970’s with its ‘thrills and spills’, concluding ‘this one’s for all the old men out there’. At Newport we heard ‘what a city, what a river!’ Somewhere between Hereford and Abergavenny the man opposite me asked his friends if they thought the train company conducted random drug testing. But even if our conductor was a partaker of illicit substances, my pleasure at his company would remain undiminished. As he himself said ‘there’s a fine line between genius and insanity, and I don’t think I need to tell you which side I’m on’. No, he didn’t. He obviously stood on both. This man, bless him, stands as a genius amongst train conductors.